Our task this lesson was to create a very short, quick piece of music to go over a 30-second clip from any movie we wanted - it could be either romantic or of the horror genre. We learnt a technique to change even the simplest, happiest melodies into something darker - and that was by making slight changes to the chords you were playing. For example, a C Major arpeggio (aka broken chord - C, E, G) would be quite an upbeat tune, whereas if you took it and played a C Minor arpeggio (C, Eb, G), the chord would sound more sinister and add a more suspenseful edge to the piece of music. You can easily remember the difference between a minor chord and a major chord by the amount of piano keys between each note of the chord on a piano, including the note itself in the count:
- In a major chord, the difference between the first note and the second is 5 notes, and then between the second and the third is 4 (including the note of the chord itself and semitones). For example, in a C Major chord, there's five notes between C and E (C, Db, D, Eb, E), then 4 between E and G (E, F, Gb, G)
- A minor chord is vice versa, there is four then five notes in difference between the first and second, then second and third notes of the chord. For example, in a C Minor chord, there's four notes between C and Eb (C, Db, D, Eb) and then five between Eb and G (Eb, E, F, Gb, G)
For this task, me and my partner opted to use the darker, more horror side that we learnt for film music in our piece, but at the same time not make it too eerie. The only instrument we used was a keyboard, with the Arpeggio setting - 'Style: 095', which allowed us to have a constant arpeggio played in the background while I played a melody - my partner took control of switching the broken chords in the background to go along with the tune. This was what we composed:
Melody: G Bb D F ; E Dd D Bb ; G - - C ; C Bb A G ; (G) - - - ; - - - - ; G
Arpeggio: Gm Gm E F Gm Gm (Gm)
The piece starts off in a G Minor arpeggio with a simple but eerie tune, and then, when it lands on G the arpeggio changes to E major, getting a little bit more cheerful, this pattern continuing on with the F Major arpeggio, where the melody slowly comes back down to lower notes, getting eerier, and then the arpeggio switches back to G Minor when the tune lands on the last note, G. For a while, the texture is quite thin as nothing is played except for the arpeggio, which serves as a steady ostinato in the background, and then after two repetitions of the broken chord the piece ends with one final note (G) - we added this bit in because it would add to the value of the music as a 'horror' piece, coming in at the end when the audience doesn't suspect, when the people listening think it is over - it stops the whole thing from getting too boring.
After we recorded the music, I went back and I decided to add a video to the music from what I thought would suit it well. Using 'iMovie', I downloaded different parts of a short clip from the movie 'Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Part 2' and rearranged them so it went along with the music - I chose this particular movie as it is well known for being a romance but at the same time can also be considered horror, therefore meeting the specifications of our task. The clip I chose was of when Bella, the protagonist is in a deep sleep, but it is clear that something is wrong with her - the fact that the movie is supernatural meant that I could use our short music piece over this video, as it sounds almost peaceful, but in a way that the melody was slightly mystical and eerie. Then, at the end, I used a part of the clip where Bella opens here eyes - as a vampire. I tried to time this so that the final note of 'G' was when she opened her eyes to reveal crimson, bloodred irises. I also added a few subtle sound effects at the beginning and end of the video to sustain the suspense.
I think one of the better parts of our piece was the ending, as it is unexpected, and helps make it more of a 'horror' piece, although I think it could've been improved where instrumentation or texture is concerned, as the final note doesn't provide as much of a scare when being played on a keyboard - I could've either changed the instrument to a more sinister sounding one, or even just changed the notes I was playing by building the volume up to a crescendo and then pressing two G Minor chords at the same time - one low-pitched, one high on the keyboard to make it more of a "grand" finale to the piece. Other areas for improvement are sound quality of the recording (it could've been more clear) and the piece could've also been slightly longer - something to be considered the next time we do this task.
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